Geography in Movies

For those who know me - I often say that Geography is everything. You often laugh when I relate the Geography to the things around you, even the movies you watch. For example, recently I watched the korean drama series "Jewel in the Palace" and "legendary doctor Hur Jun. Both pointed out the importance of the source of water for cooking and brewing medicine. Chang Jin was asked to bring back different types of water and used them for cooking. She later realised that a certain spring water make a wonderful soup base for noodle and was served to the king. Hur Jun's teacher was angry that he brought back the wrong type of water which was not suitable for brewing medicine. Have you really wondered why there are so many different types of water? When I was young, I brought the water from a well to school and as we looked at it through the microscope, we realised that it was so different from the tap water. As water seeps through the ground, it dissolved some minerals and the water content thus differ. That's why some people prefer to drink from certain springs. I love to watch CSI and it was mentioned in many series that water carries an identity - the water found in a river or even in different swimming pools differ.

In a particular Hong Kong drama "Cha shi Gu Xiang Rong" and it was about how people struggled to grow tea. It is simply so geographical - from looking at the soil type to tracing the water source. How tea plantation was monopolised and of course many features of plantation which I had discussed with the students - such as how the tea leaves are harvested using cheap labour and how the tea leaves are processed in the factories. The growing of tea plants on higher altitude and how roads are constructed to faciliate movement of the processed tea leaves from the plantation to the factory and from the factory to the market.

Even movies like the Hong Kong movie 'the monster' talk about a tragic caused by development. The 'monster' was actually a woman who had lost her husband and kid during the 70's when the government forced the occupants of the slum to move out. Her husband was burnt to death while protesting against the government. She refused to move out of the slum and her boy was eventually killed by a fallen structure while looking for food in the deserted slum. She continued to live in the area (hiding in the ventilation shaft) even though a high rise condominium had been built over the slum she used to lived in. A point to ponder- a slum is considered to be undesirable for development as it has poor sanitation, hygiene and prove to be a fire hazard. However to many the slum is their home and they had developed a strong attachment to the place. Many had been cleared for development and standard of living has been raised. However, slums had proven to be a challenge to many governments in the developing countries as the occupants refused to move out of the slum - even till today!

Of course there are hundreds of movies which look at the natural disasters we faced today as well as environmental degaradation which leads to problem such as global warming. My favourite would be 'Dante's Peak", "the storm" and 'the day after tomorrow." The one I missed most is 'The Medicine Man" - a movie which shows how deforestation has affected the natives living in the Amazon as well as how Man's greed had also led to us losing some of the possible medicine which we can use to treat illness such as cancer. I would really appreciate if you can find a copy for me!